Eric Clapton: Past His Prime By 52 Years

He's a Bigot and an Idiot to Boot

First, let me acknowledge that Eric Clapton is a fantastic guitar player. List of the best guitarists of all time are pretty subjective, and I have many innovative guitarists I’d put ahead of him (say, Robert Fripp) but Clapton had talent, and his work with the Yardbirds, Cream, John Mayall, Delaney and Bonnie, and Derek & the Dominoes is key in this history of blues rock.

But one thing that’s stuck in my craw for a long, long time is the after Derek & the Dominoes he’s kind of coasted. Oh sure, had some worthy tracks here and there, but it didn’t sustain album over album, or even in the same album. For someone like me who thinks the deep cuts show the true talent of the artist I really can’t remember more than a handful of his deeper cuts on his solo records, while I know about every note from Disraeli Gears and Layla.

The thing about Clapton is that he’s better in circumstances where he’s pushed by others in a group setting and he’s a better interpreter than songwriter as a whole. But unlike Nashville, they expect you to write at least some of your own tracks, and that’s where he falters.

In his early career, with the Yardbirds and John Mayall, he definitely was more of an interpreter of classic blues instead of a writer. When Cream was put together, Jack Bruce and his co-writers (Peter Brown, mostly) wrote the largest share of the original material. Clapton did write or co-write some classics: “Strange Brew”, “Sunshine of Your Love” (he wrote the chorus, not the main riff), “Tales of Brave Ulysses”, and “Badge”.

After a stint in Blind Faith (where he wrote “Presence of the Lord”), he started a solo career. His first solo affair was decent. He co-wrote a lot of songs with Bonnie Bramlett and a couple (“Let it Rain” and “Blues Power”) are among his best. But the best track on the album is a cover of J. J. Cale’s “After Midnight”, where he gets into a mellow-ish yet up-tempo groove that allows him a lot of room to solo and add color. Hold that thought.

Then he formed Derek & the Dominoes, and he and co-writer Bobby Whitlock put together a killer album. “Bell Bottom Blues” is probably my favorite Clapton record. Duane Allman came along during the sessions, and the two of them pushed each other to the limit, and the result was Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs. That’s one of my favorite albums, period.

But from 1971 to 1974 he didn’t release any studio work. He toured, and then fell into a heroin torpor. Rousing himself with the help of some friends, he put together a decent album, 461 Ocean Boulevard, but telling the best two cuts were interpretations instead of originals (“Motherless Children” and “I Shot the Sheriff”. He once again excelled at a low-key groove instead of pushing the boundaries.

Then there was a fallow period until 1977’s Slowhand, which had two good Clapton originals (“Lay Down Sally”, “Next Time You See Her”), and a good interpretation of another J. J. Cale song “Cocaine”. Except for the ballads, it was another case of the groove taking over.

This record also has the song I despise the most from Clapton. It was made into a beer commercial, and is one of the songs cover bands always play to get people to slow dance (along with “Comfortably Numb”, which makes no sense at all). But the song is an impatient one about a woman taking forever to get ready to go to a party, not a true song of adoration. I’m not naming it because I hate it, hate it, hate it so much. I hate it.

After that, the albums came and went, getting more mediocre as time goes on, like Clapton was punching a clock. “I Can’t Stand It” rocked a little harder than his normal groove, but his other big hits until 1985 were covers, again. (“Promises” and “I Got a Rock and Roll Heart”) and “Forever Man” was a cover as well.

Clapton really starts coasting in 1985. Most of his big hits were ready-made for commercials “She’s Waiting” and “It’s in the Way That You Use It” sound more like 80’s ad fodder than the work of a serious bluesman. And so it went until he wrote that song about his kid dying that MTV played 24/7 for about a year. Another big hit with a treacly ballad. Not what we expected from Slowhand, am I right? (I hate that other song more, though. I really do).

So basically he hasn’t written a consistent batch of good tracks since 1971, and except for a few outliers his best work since then are covers that are in his groove wheelhouse. But he’s done worse than make mediocre albums that sell because of a name.

In the 70’s, he was at a concert in London and started an infamous speech about foreigners in the UK. At the time, the National Front was a big deal and Enoch Powell’s “Rivers of Blood” speech was a rallying cry for know-nothing anti-immigrant asswipes. Clapton, on stage, made a bigoted fool of himself by spouting virulent racist support for Powell and those morons. He tried to make amends later but did the “some of my best friends are black and I fucked a black woman” thing, but it made him look even worse.

To be a little fair, he may have had a drinking problem then (remember he was a serious heroin addict so he probably should have stayed away from the substances) and he ‘contributes’ to anti-racist groups in the UK now. You said what you said, Eric, and you’ve vacillated between overt shame and slight regret since then.

Then, during Covid, he along with Van Morrison (another guy way past his sell date) teamed up to denounce lockdowns and vaccines and bankrolled groups that flouted the Covid-19 restrictions. He even wrote songs about ‘medical freedom’ and against vaccines, though he was vaccinated himself. Freedom to get sick and get long covid or die, right? He also posed for pictures with uber-facsist governor Greg Abbott of Texas and one of his biggest fans is blowhard Michael Knowles, who is a real piece of work.

Clapton still sells out concerts, and still has his records played all of the time. But when you look at his career, he’s slunk into that groove he discovered in 1970 and rode it out to today, with bypasses for bigotry and medical idiocy.

And I hate that fucking song more and more each time I hear it.